A series of left-wing organizations were invited to a conference on the issue of human rights, while right wing organizations will not be participating. Chairman of the Education Committee in the Knesset: “Left wing extremist organizations will speak in the conference, with the approval of the university and the bill will be paid by taxes.” The organization: we invited guests from right wing organizations to the human rights conference and they refused to come.

A one-sided conference in Ben-Gurion University---is this because of the organizations or because of right-wing people? The Department of Government and Politics at Ben-Gurion University again encouraged a storm, this time in the background of a conference on the issue of human rights, expected to take place this coming week. The conference invited representatives of the organizations B’tselem, The Public Committee against Torture in Israel, Adalah, Breaking the Silence, Physicians for Human Rights, Hagada hasmalit, Shatil, and Amnesty International. Representatives of right-wing organizations were not invited.

The political line ascended from the program of the conference aroused a lot of fury amongst the students of the university. One of the students said: “The sensation of the conference is as if the heads of the group did this just to cause a stir, for the sake of creating a left-wing university that is disconnected from the Israeli political situation. The issue in regards to the conference is the important decision that hurt the feelings of the society on this topic, but they will not be prepared that they will not succeed to find even one representative of the right.”

Chairman of the Education Committee of the Knesset, MK Alex Miller, said because of the one-sidedness of the conference, “Left wing extremist organizations will speak in the conference, with the approval of the university and the bill will be paid by taxes, disconnected from the desire to give a platform to polaristic political conversations and to present shades of grey. Witnesses to this were made aware of the absence of Zionist organizations and non-profits.”

He said that his intention is to clear off urgently this university issue. “These policies are expressed in additional ways, opposing the decisions of the Educational Committee and Council for Higher Education----which calls for preventing the politicization of Israeli Academia.”

In a letter on this issue to Ben-Gurion University President Prof. Rivka Carmi, Ronen Shoval, Chairman of Im Tirtzu, emphasized that last December the Council for Higher Education assembled and decided to prevent any event that encourages the politicization of academia. “It appears that the simple message of the Council for Higher Education is that there is no permeating the university, inasmuch as the issue of the conference is political personality, the one-sided anti-Zionist characteristic, inside of the utter quiet and trampling of positions, catching the world, and approaching different research.” He wrote: “The participating list of this conference, financed by the Israeli tax payers, blunders this one technique and it is clear that you all continue to ignore the decisions of the Council of Higher Education, creating thought police, and excluding Zionist voices from the university. There is no free academia that has polarized positions!”

The head of the Government and Politics Department, Danny Filc, said that this is not an academic framework which requires balance, but in this present conference at the end there is a framework for exchanging ideas, opinions, and analyzing developments to all that want.

Dr. Filc added that the organizers spoke with people in the field of communications and politics, whose principle approach is critical to human rights organizations, but many refused to come and others didn't respond to the requests. It is possible that those who worry that there is no right-wing representation should point their criticism towards their elected members who didn't want to show up. Similarly, if there is a group of students wanting to organize a conference according to their different orientation, then the university will provide the logistics.”